


want you back

by cooperstown



Series: Chrobin Week 2019 [7]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Chrobin Week 2019, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 15:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooperstown/pseuds/cooperstown
Summary: After the final battle with Grima, Chrom finds himself living with one foot in the present and one foot in the past.





	want you back

**Author's Note:**

> For Chrobin Week, Day 7: Promise. Loosely inspired by "Want You Back" by 5 Seconds of Summer and includes a few lines from in-game. Thank you, [Lee](https://twitter.com/birbtactician), for beta-reading for me! Her Twitter is a treasure trove of Chrobin art.
> 
> Folks, here we are -- the last day of Chrobin Week (at least, it still is in my time zone). Whether you've been keeping up with my prompt fills since the beginning or are just reading a fic of mine for the first time, thank you for taking the time to check out my work! Hopefully my real life schedule and Chrobin Week mesh better next year, but for now, I'm looking forward to not scrambling to write a fic everyday haha.

Like mist, Grima’s form began to fade away. As if she were a mirror, Robin’s own form began to fade away as well.

“Robin! No!”

Every passing second erased more and more of Robin’s existence, so Chrom didn’t dare take his eyes off of her — fighting against time to burn her image into his brain, wondering if this was the last time that he’d see her face.

“…May we meet again, in a better life…”

Chrom felt a droplet splash on his cheek. And another. Then another. He wondered when it started raining, only to realize that he was crying — the reality of what was happening starting to seep past the adrenaline rush of battle.

There was so much that he wanted to say.

_What about the kingdom? I can’t rule without you. What about The Shepherds? They’re expecting you to return to them. What about Luci? She needs her mother._

**_What about me? How can I go on without my other half?_ **

With so little time left, Chrom wanted to make his words count, but anything he could think of to say just sounded insane. How could he bring himself to burden Robin with his selfish thoughts when she’d just sacrificed herself for their world and the generations to come?

In the end, all Chrom could manage to do was to repeat himself from earlier. “Robin! No! Ah gods, NO!”

Robin raised an arm to wave at him, and in the blink of an eye, there was only empty space in the spot she once stood.

Chrom wakes with a start, the sight of his and Robin’s bedroom ceiling replacing that of his dream. Turning his head to the look at other side of the bed, his eyes meet Robin’s back and he takes a moment to admire the smattering of freckles on her back — the product of years of exposure to the Plegian sun. His lips curve up in a smile when he thinks about the times he’s traced her freckles, his featherlight touch enough to make her squirm with suppressed laughter that bubbled out when he decided to switch to an all-out tickle offense.

This morning, Chrom decides he’ll show mercy and simply reaches for her. Instead of making contact with her skin, his arm meets the linen of his and Robin’s bedsheets. He rubs the lingering sleep from his eyes and realizes that, like his dream, the image of a sleeping Robin is another memory of the past.

Enough days have passed since the final battle with Grima that Chrom _should_ know better than to reach for a Robin who isn’t there in the morning; but then a new day comes, and he finds himself reaching for her again, his body acting before his brain can catch up. He’s sure that, come tomorrow, he still won’t have learned. Frankly, he’s not sure that he wants to, not if it means extinguishing the hope that one day, she’ll actually be there when he reaches for her.

After breakfast, Chrom starts his day as he does most days by having his daily meeting with his advisors. When council draws to a close, he braces himself for what’s to come, having danced this tango enough times to have the steps memorized.

His advisors end the meeting in the same way they have since the one year mark of Robin’s disappearance — by advising that he consider moving on. In turn, he dismisses them from his office by staunchly reminding them that he’s never going to get over Robin, that he’ll always want her back.

Chrom knows that his advisors only have his and Ylisse’s objective best interests at heart. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be his advisors. Still, he can’t help but resent them ever so slightly for having the gall to continue making the same absurd suggestion day after day, even though he’s made it clear that moving on is advice from his advisors that he’ll never follow.

No matter what lands he travels and who he meets, no matter how much time passes…he’d either have Robin at his side or no one at all. For him, it’d always be her, never anyone else.

When the day’s come to an end — without paperwork to go through, Lucina to take care of and play with, or his friends to keep him company — Chrom has no choice but to return to a room meant for two by himself.

With his eyes closed, as he lies in a bed that’s too big for one, his thoughts turn to where he went wrong. He knows there’s no use in dwelling on the past and what he can’t change, but, not for the first time, he thinks about how he should’ve stopped Robin from breaking her promise and landing the final blow.

He certainly could’ve, couldn’t he? Why then, didn’t he? Why was he frozen in place the moment she made her intent clear? Why was he unable to act at the moment he needed to act the most?

Unable to answer any of his own questions, his thoughts instead drift to the promise he’d asked Robin to make him at Origin Peak.

In spite of her promise not to sacrifice herself, it was Robin who ended up dealing the final blow to Grima, effectively eliminating him for good…and herself in the process. His heart aches at the memory, even more so at the thought that, regardless of what she’d promised him, she’d always intended to sacrifice herself.

While Chrom waits for his body to drift off to sleep, he imagines different conversations that could’ve played out on that day — conversations where he’s successful in convincing Robin not to sacrifice herself, conversations that result in Robin still being here with him.

Just before succumbing to slumber, he shifts gears to think about his agenda for the day tomorrow. His searches for Robin across the land have been fruitless so far, but Lissa recently proposed checking near the border of Ylisse again — like when they’d first found Robin — and he finally had time in his schedule to make the trip with her tomorrow.

Perhaps tomorrow would be the day that he would reunite with her, the thought making him smile. Until then though, he looked forward to meeting her again in his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [Tumblr](https://tonystonem.tumblr.com/). :)


End file.
